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And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2018)And Now We Have Everything is O'Connell's exploration of transitioning into motherhood as a fledgling young adult. O'Connell addresses the pervasive imposter syndrome that comes with unplanned pregnancy, the second adolescence of a changing postpartum body, the problem of sex post-baby, the weird push to make "mom friends," and the fascinating strangeness of stepping into a new, not-yet-comfortable identity.
O'Connell brings us into the delivery room rendering childbirth in all its feverish gore and glory, and shattering the fantasies of a "magical" or "natural" experience that warp our expectations and erode maternal self-esteem.
And Now We Have Everything is an unflinchingly frank, funny, and intimate motherhood story for our times, about needing to have a baby in order to stop being one yourself.
O'Connell brings us into the delivery room rendering childbirth in all its feverish gore and glory, and shattering the fantasies of a "magical" or "natural" experience that warp our expectations and erode maternal self-esteem.
And Now We Have Everything is an unflinchingly frank, funny, and intimate motherhood story for our times, about needing to have a baby in order to stop being one yourself.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published April 10, 2018
272 people are currently reading
15829 people want to read
About the author
Meaghan O'Connell
6 books283 followersMeaghan O'Connell lives with her husband and young son in Portland, OR. She is a contributing writer for Longreads and New York Magazine's The Cut. From 2013-2015 she co-edited the personal finance website The Billfold, and before that worked in the tech industry, where she was an early employee at Kickstarter and Tumblr.
Her first book, And Now We Have Everything, is forthcoming from Little, Brown in April 2018.
Her first book, And Now We Have Everything, is forthcoming from Little, Brown in April 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 972 reviews
April 20, 2018
A woman had an electric razor out and was shaving my pubic hair. I debated asking her if she accepted tips and decided against it.
This was such an enjoyable reading experience. I laughed, I remembered, I nodded along with some of the author's experiences and cringed at others. I suppose this is like the evil (and totally honest) twin to What to Expect When You're Expecting.
O'Connell doesn't waste time with the bullshit. I have no idea if this book will have the same effect on those who haven't had a baby, or men, but it was so great to read a book that gets in to all the funny miserable gory details of pregnancy and early motherhood. The author's style is frank, witty and engaging as she navigates through the self-doubt and insecurities while pregnant, the birth and recovery period, and trying to hold her relationship together whilst breastfeeding and depressed.
There's so many books painting birth and motherhood as a beautiful, uplifting experience. So many mommy bloggers on Pinterest bossing life with their mason jar salads, labelled containers of everything from flour to quinoa to chia seed (seriously, wtf?), and their freezers full of expressed breast milk. I don't know about you, but this is not my reality.
And Now We Have Everything definitely makes you want to share your own experiences. I totally get feeling like you'll never be good enough. I get waking up obsessively and squinting at your baby to see if he's still breathing, convinced that he isn't. I get spending months feeling like a lactating pair of breasts and not a human being. Breasts have been sexualized in the society I live in, but there's no cure for this sexualization quite like the pain and messiness of breastfeeding. I am so over breasts.
And, hell, there is so much pressure! Especially in the U.S. (or California, at least). Growing up, many of the women I knew formula-fed their babies. My siblings and I were all formula-fed. This is mostly because our mothers couldn't afford to not go back to work and milking humans with a machine wasn't a thing.
But for me, in Southern California, nobody asked me what I wanted to do. It was just accepted that I would breastfeed unless - gasp - I was unable to. When my second baby had trouble latching in the first few days, we had to supplement with formula, and the nurse looked at me gravely and assured me "Please don't worry, you will still be able to breastfeed" and all I was actually worried about was that my baby got some food.
Breastfeeding was not the most incredible experience of my life, and my baby is still mortal. He still gets sick. I went to great lengths to do it, for reasons I can no longer relate to. Or none other than this: I so desperately wanted to do the right thing, and I had no idea what that was yet.
I love that O'Connell dispels myths surrounding childbirth. She paints it not as a beautiful, miraculous experience, but as a painful, gory, unglamorous one. As she notes at one point, people seem reluctant to be honest with women about what an unpleasant experience it can be - as if they're afraid the human race will die out or something - urging them to "embrace the pain and make it part of themselves" or some other crap. Yeah, maybe that works for some women, but there are many who feel like failures when it doesn't.
Most of all I just love how this book forgives us-- for being unable to breastfeed, for saying "f--- you" to a natural birth, for crying despairingly while listening to Alison Krauss sing Baby Mine (shut up), for spending a year looking like shit, for being crazy, for not being perfect. I think every new mother needs it.
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May 1, 2018
Every once in a while there is some genuine insight here, but this was for the most part kind of shallow and annoying. I wanted something that explores the complexity of motherhood, like how you love your kids, you would die for your kids, but if you had it to do over again you might not have them? But this was more, my baby’s really cute but I feel so fat. I just didn’t like the writing and I felt like the author sounded so high maintenance. Every interaction with her partner is pretty much: she says something, he responds, she starts crying. Now I just want to reread After Birth and erase this one from my memory.
January 22, 2018
I related to this book very deeply, which is maybe odd, because I don't actually have children. But I'm trying to decide if I want to, and reading this memoir allowed me to feel like I was sitting inside a close friend's mind while she experienced everything for me. (Convenient! Except the body horror.)
The writing is inviting, especially for a child of the internet like me: at turns bitingly sarcastic, deeply self-reflective, and breathtakingly vulnerable. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in what it's like to suddenly create a whole person out of tiny cells...and really, it's a valuable primer on being a woman, generally. (I'm having my husband read it now, and we've had such illumination conversations as "Wait, what's an episiotomy?" and "But I thought PMS was just mood swings?") I loved it.
The writing is inviting, especially for a child of the internet like me: at turns bitingly sarcastic, deeply self-reflective, and breathtakingly vulnerable. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in what it's like to suddenly create a whole person out of tiny cells...and really, it's a valuable primer on being a woman, generally. (I'm having my husband read it now, and we've had such illumination conversations as "Wait, what's an episiotomy?" and "But I thought PMS was just mood swings?") I loved it.
May 4, 2018
Reading this book was like reading the diary of my high school friend who never grew up. It was complete navel gazing - there was no greater meaning, no truth, no deeper understanding, and most of the beginning felt incredibly false. Like she took these fleeting tiny thoughts she might have had and made them seem huge and intrusive so she could fill pages. And so it doesn’t seem like maybe I just can’t relate: I got pregnant with my fiancé before we got married too, so this should be completely in my wheelhouse. I hate that I hated it.
(To be fair, I listened to the audio and she has an incredibly whiny voice, which may have contributed to my immense dislike.)
(To be fair, I listened to the audio and she has an incredibly whiny voice, which may have contributed to my immense dislike.)
June 15, 2018
I'm struggling recently with books that are about important things that I don't think are great and this is an example. The author writes about her unexpected pregnancy, tough birth, and year of postpartum challenge. It's really important to de-romanticize motherhood and babies, to talk about the anger and ugliness of it, and in some passages, she has a winning combination of honesty and dark humor. But too often, I found myself wincing, and wishing she had pushed for more self-insight. I read memoir to spend some time in someone else's life and head and expand my horizons, but in this case I think the author needed to do some more living and self-examination before rushing a book into being.
September 9, 2018
I try not to think about the first year I was a mother. Actually, I don't think much about the second year either. The way people talk about parenthood generally and motherhood specifically, you expect it to just happen, you expect to find this new part of yourself, you expect to be happy. None of those things really happened for me and none of them happened to Meaghan O'Connell either. Her memoir dives deepest into the disconnect between the narratives we're given about motherhood and how pregnancy, birth, and parenting actually go.
The subtitle had me expecting a different book, maybe about having a baby too young or in difficult circumstances. O'Connell's baby is unplanned but her story isn't unusual. She's in a stable relationship of several years and is engaged to be married. She is comfortable financially. She's in her late 20's, the time she'd planned to start having kids anyway. It's clear to me, at least, that this isn't a book about being ready for motherhood, that had she had a baby five years later her experiences would not have been significantly different.
It's a slim book and I read it in one sitting. I liked O'Connell's writing very much and for women who aren't sure how to map out motherhood or who wonder what it's really like, this is an excellent book to put in their hands. Often there is a line everyone must stick to when discussing motherhood, that even if we say that you make the choice that's right for you, we secretly all agree that one choice is better than another, and thus one mother is better than another. O'Connell likes to dive into those notions head on, her chapter on breastfeeding is a case in point.
Sometimes with this kind of memoir I wonder if it's written too soon after events occurred. Only half the book is about actual motherhood, and her birth story takes up too many pages for such a small book. It's a doozy of a birth story, and I get the way even women with simple births can become obsessed with all the tiny details of that birth story, O'Connell even dives into some really interesting stuff, but it's so much longer than other sections of the book that it almost feels more like a book about pregnancy and childbirth than motherhood if you only look at page count.
My quibbles aside, it's the kind of book I wish I'd had before kids or while pregnant or while struggling heavily with the early years of my own motherhood. She's not afraid to lay bare the emotions that most mothers try desperately to hide and cover up. O'Connell is a hell of a writer, there are plenty of sentences here that make you stop and take notice.
The subtitle had me expecting a different book, maybe about having a baby too young or in difficult circumstances. O'Connell's baby is unplanned but her story isn't unusual. She's in a stable relationship of several years and is engaged to be married. She is comfortable financially. She's in her late 20's, the time she'd planned to start having kids anyway. It's clear to me, at least, that this isn't a book about being ready for motherhood, that had she had a baby five years later her experiences would not have been significantly different.
It's a slim book and I read it in one sitting. I liked O'Connell's writing very much and for women who aren't sure how to map out motherhood or who wonder what it's really like, this is an excellent book to put in their hands. Often there is a line everyone must stick to when discussing motherhood, that even if we say that you make the choice that's right for you, we secretly all agree that one choice is better than another, and thus one mother is better than another. O'Connell likes to dive into those notions head on, her chapter on breastfeeding is a case in point.
Sometimes with this kind of memoir I wonder if it's written too soon after events occurred. Only half the book is about actual motherhood, and her birth story takes up too many pages for such a small book. It's a doozy of a birth story, and I get the way even women with simple births can become obsessed with all the tiny details of that birth story, O'Connell even dives into some really interesting stuff, but it's so much longer than other sections of the book that it almost feels more like a book about pregnancy and childbirth than motherhood if you only look at page count.
My quibbles aside, it's the kind of book I wish I'd had before kids or while pregnant or while struggling heavily with the early years of my own motherhood. She's not afraid to lay bare the emotions that most mothers try desperately to hide and cover up. O'Connell is a hell of a writer, there are plenty of sentences here that make you stop and take notice.
August 31, 2019
"What if, instead of worrying about scaring pregnant women, people told them the truth? What is pregnant women were treated like thinking adults? What if everyone worried less about giving women a bad impression of motherhood?"
A brave exploration of transitioning into motherhood as a fledgling young adult.
Brutally honest and raw, McConnell holds nothing back. I often found myself going for longer walks than normal, just to spend more time listening to the author's frank and funny insights. One part that really resonated with me was when O'Connell questioned why women are not more honest about how unpleasant and painful childbirth can be - as if they are in fear that if they are, the human race will die out! This increases the risk of women feeling like a failure if their experience of childbirth isn't as beautiful as it is sometimes made out to be.
Initially I wasn't sure if I liked the author's voice (she is the narrator of the audiobook), it seemed slightly whiny to me, but within about 10 minutes I found it weirdly soothing. Even when she was imitating how her friends spoke or reacted to different things.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one - any suggestions for more non-fiction books about motherhood would be very welcome! 4 stars.
A brave exploration of transitioning into motherhood as a fledgling young adult.
Brutally honest and raw, McConnell holds nothing back. I often found myself going for longer walks than normal, just to spend more time listening to the author's frank and funny insights. One part that really resonated with me was when O'Connell questioned why women are not more honest about how unpleasant and painful childbirth can be - as if they are in fear that if they are, the human race will die out! This increases the risk of women feeling like a failure if their experience of childbirth isn't as beautiful as it is sometimes made out to be.
Initially I wasn't sure if I liked the author's voice (she is the narrator of the audiobook), it seemed slightly whiny to me, but within about 10 minutes I found it weirdly soothing. Even when she was imitating how her friends spoke or reacted to different things.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one - any suggestions for more non-fiction books about motherhood would be very welcome! 4 stars.
Read
July 1, 2018There are a lot of things I appreciated about this book, but I also found myself feeling oddly judgmental about the author’s tone in a way that’s really unusual for me. I’ll probably be writing about this for another outlet soon, so we’ll see if I’m able to articulate it better with a little more time. Still, this is a great pregnancy/early motherhood memoir and I recommend it if the jacket description is calling to you.
June 20, 2019
Let's just say, this fundamentally wasn't for me (and in hindsight...why did I think it would be?) I guess I was looking for some kind of recognisable millennial anxiety about what it means to be an adult in the world, doing adult things, when you feel far from ready. While, to a certain extent, O'Connell captured that "looking for the real adult in the room" tone, this just didn't work for me. Although I don't begrudge O'Connell her privilege, and I don't think this memoir needed to speak for all experiences, her story was so far removed from some very real, practical, and widely experienced challenges arising from facing motherhood before one was ready. Because of this, O'Connell loses (or is likely to lose) what could be a significant audience. Ultimately, this memoir chronicled a more particular experience than I expected it to, and in the end I couldn't move past the bourgeois concerns which were foreground, to the detriment of what could have been some quite meaningful analysis of expectation, and the changing shape of young adult lives.
Caveat- this very much could be an example of the wrong book, at exactly the wrong time. Either way, it's a shame.
Caveat- this very much could be an example of the wrong book, at exactly the wrong time. Either way, it's a shame.
July 15, 2018
Meaghan O'Connell writes honestly about pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, including all the physical challenges and how relationships change after you become a mother, no matter what your intentions and beliefs may have been. I think I would have appreciated more reflection and time passing but feel like that might have negatively impacted the feeling of immediacy in her experience.
I was interested in this for multiple reasons, but partly because I want to read more people talking about how they change after becoming parents, whether or not they were biological. This book is very focused on the biological and physical elements, so it wasn't quite as helpful to my personal reading project, but I still learned about her experience, which was interesting in itself. There is a lot here about expectations vs. reality, adjusting to the massiveness of the irrevocable change of motherhood.
I think even the chapter titles are telling. (Parentheses are mine.) Baby Fever, Holding Patterns (about pregnancy and all the thoughts and physical changes), A Birth Story (whew), Sleepless Nights, A Certain Kind of Mammal (breastfeeding), Slacker Parent (observing her husband as the perfect relentlessly energetic parent while she struggles with physical healing and depression), Maternal Instincts, Dry Spell, Extra Room.
"Dustin and I used to agree about everything. I used to feel like he saw me and knew me better than anyone. But now that we had a child together, I worried we actually didn't know each other at all. We felt less like a couple than like co-workers, in service to the same human project."
"I wanted to arrive by our new happiness honestly, without trying to, at some later date. I wanted it be undeniable, to take us by surprise. A mother, a father, a baby, a family. I would be happy despite myself. I would wake up before my family and go for a run. Before that, though, I wanted someone to come along and agree that yes, everything was shit. I so wanted that person to be him."
"I needed to be able to fall apart. I needed to come to all of it in my own time. And until then, someone had to make dinner."
"How to explain the strange arc of parenthood to new mothers? How to tell it so that they believe you? The way things start out hard and then ease up. It is like finding more hours in the day. It is like the end of the school year, that first day of summer. It's like you moved to a new country, and it's beautiful but there's a war going on. But then the war ends and you begin reconstructing yourself."
I was interested in this for multiple reasons, but partly because I want to read more people talking about how they change after becoming parents, whether or not they were biological. This book is very focused on the biological and physical elements, so it wasn't quite as helpful to my personal reading project, but I still learned about her experience, which was interesting in itself. There is a lot here about expectations vs. reality, adjusting to the massiveness of the irrevocable change of motherhood.
I think even the chapter titles are telling. (Parentheses are mine.) Baby Fever, Holding Patterns (about pregnancy and all the thoughts and physical changes), A Birth Story (whew), Sleepless Nights, A Certain Kind of Mammal (breastfeeding), Slacker Parent (observing her husband as the perfect relentlessly energetic parent while she struggles with physical healing and depression), Maternal Instincts, Dry Spell, Extra Room.
"Dustin and I used to agree about everything. I used to feel like he saw me and knew me better than anyone. But now that we had a child together, I worried we actually didn't know each other at all. We felt less like a couple than like co-workers, in service to the same human project."
"I wanted to arrive by our new happiness honestly, without trying to, at some later date. I wanted it be undeniable, to take us by surprise. A mother, a father, a baby, a family. I would be happy despite myself. I would wake up before my family and go for a run. Before that, though, I wanted someone to come along and agree that yes, everything was shit. I so wanted that person to be him."
"I needed to be able to fall apart. I needed to come to all of it in my own time. And until then, someone had to make dinner."
"How to explain the strange arc of parenthood to new mothers? How to tell it so that they believe you? The way things start out hard and then ease up. It is like finding more hours in the day. It is like the end of the school year, that first day of summer. It's like you moved to a new country, and it's beautiful but there's a war going on. But then the war ends and you begin reconstructing yourself."
April 19, 2018
My Thoughts: Interestingly, Meaghan O’Connell’s book is subtitled “On Motherhood Before I Was Ready.” Why so interesting you might ask. Well, it’s actually for a couple reasons, one that has to do with all women and one more for O’Connell.
As a woman with now adult children, I can say for all of us that NO ONE is ever really ready for motherhood. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more ready a woman thinks she is, probably the less ready she actually is. I think it might be a little like war. You can read all about it, and you might even get trained to go to war, but until you’ve actually been there, you just can’t know. Motherhood is an on-the-fly job. You figure it out as you go. As I said, my kids are adults and I’m still figuring it out!
Meaghan O’Connell might have been slightly less ready than the average women, but not for lack of trying. O’Connell had already known that she wanted a baby, so when she turned up pregnant at 29, the decision for her and her fiancée, Dustin, to have the baby was a relatively easy one. From the onset, O’Connell was a slave to information, to answers to the unanswerable questions of how things would go for her, before, during and after the birth of her son. She was a Google maniac constantly trying to calm her many, many fears. For me her anxiety bordered on the neurotic and her experiences, while large to her, were not really all that different from many other women’s. O’Connell implies that she wasn’t ready for motherhood because of the timing and where she was in life, but I don’t think she’d have been any more ready at 40. Her journey was her journey to take.
O’Connell’s writing in And Now We Have Everything was sharp, funny and wonderfully easy to read, though I grew weary of her unrelenting angst. I’m sure younger woman will appreciate the book more than I did. Still, I’d like to issue a warning to readers who might be considering having a first baby: And Now We Have Everything tells the events surrounding one woman’s journey into motherhood. Yours will be your own, and likely much different. Please, read with that in mind.
Original Source - Novel Visits: https://novelvisits.com/mini-reviews-...
As a woman with now adult children, I can say for all of us that NO ONE is ever really ready for motherhood. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more ready a woman thinks she is, probably the less ready she actually is. I think it might be a little like war. You can read all about it, and you might even get trained to go to war, but until you’ve actually been there, you just can’t know. Motherhood is an on-the-fly job. You figure it out as you go. As I said, my kids are adults and I’m still figuring it out!
Meaghan O’Connell might have been slightly less ready than the average women, but not for lack of trying. O’Connell had already known that she wanted a baby, so when she turned up pregnant at 29, the decision for her and her fiancée, Dustin, to have the baby was a relatively easy one. From the onset, O’Connell was a slave to information, to answers to the unanswerable questions of how things would go for her, before, during and after the birth of her son. She was a Google maniac constantly trying to calm her many, many fears. For me her anxiety bordered on the neurotic and her experiences, while large to her, were not really all that different from many other women’s. O’Connell implies that she wasn’t ready for motherhood because of the timing and where she was in life, but I don’t think she’d have been any more ready at 40. Her journey was her journey to take.
O’Connell’s writing in And Now We Have Everything was sharp, funny and wonderfully easy to read, though I grew weary of her unrelenting angst. I’m sure younger woman will appreciate the book more than I did. Still, I’d like to issue a warning to readers who might be considering having a first baby: And Now We Have Everything tells the events surrounding one woman’s journey into motherhood. Yours will be your own, and likely much different. Please, read with that in mind.
Original Source - Novel Visits: https://novelvisits.com/mini-reviews-...
July 20, 2018
The blurb makes it sound like Meaghan got pregnant when she was really young, or at some sort of really inappropriate time when motherhood was the last thing anyone would've expected her to tackle. But no, she was 29, engaged, had a career with a flexible schedule - it doesn't seem like an inopportune time, just a few years earlier than she would've planned it, but she didn't really have any less in place than most people do. It's not much of a story. Mostly she just seems immature, whiny, and annoyingly insecure. I can see that the book might appeal to someone who wants a really detailed description of the physicality of childbirth and the first year of recovery and nursing, but most of us don't need this memoir just to tell us it's hard. I know that, and I've never been pregnant. She has nothing original to say.
December 12, 2018
Wow. I fell in love with this book since the first time I stumbled upon it. And now that I’ve read it? Well, I wished for some parts to be more detailed and for some to be less nauseating, but the overall experience was enlightening. Reading this book I felt a mixed sense of surprise and disbelief, but I’m grateful for O’Connell’s heads up. It really got me thinking. The popular belief of a mother becoming a mother immediately after giving birth, is officially debunked.
July 14, 2018
I probably should have loved this as a birth and postpartum doula but I really did not. Rather than being touched by the universal difficult experience that is motherhood, I really spent the entire book being pissed that her fiancé was a dismissive dick to her constantly, and by the end being livid at the discussion of postpartum sex that involved her fiancé guilting her and ignoring her “no” signals and then playing innocent like he didn’t know she didn’t want to have sex. Just too gross to put aside and enjoy the rest.
May 20, 2018
This book, at the very least, turned me off getting pregnant until I forget everything I ever read about it, so there's that.
I know I'm skewed a little younger than the target audience, but I just think this is a large part of the "Getting Real About Motherhood" perspective that I just didn't connect with because there were things I genuinely didn't want to know. I don't mean the horrors of childbirth, bring it on, we all exist because of it, but there were moments when the author and her partner were not at their best and it does not feel resolved. Only a brief mention that while they were in crisis and stressing over a baby, she had postpartum the whole time and this is only mentioned once at the end of the book, because I was wondering when this bundle of joy would lead to the end of their relationship. Postpartum should be talked about even when she didn't know she had it, this is a book you can do that, not slipped into the last ten pages to "add perspective" to the misery of the last two hundred.
And there are overshares that I frankly found fucked up. Upon discovering her unplanned pregnancy, her partner has triumphant, passionate "we just made a baby" unprotected sex with her, and then afterwards is rather flippant in his assurance she's just going to get an abortion. I could not like this guy after that, it left such a weird taste in my mouth that this guy thinks knocking her up was the hottest thing in the world despite the fact that to him she obviously wasn't going to keep it? I'm as pro-choice as you can get but him being turned on by what you're inevitably going to abort is so fucked up. I just could not get passed this scene, throughout the whole book, the unplanned pregnancy, leveraging a breakup if they don't keep "this baby" (she does this when he points out they can get pregnant later down the line, he does not feel ready for a child yet) just made me feel exhausted. There's something about the level of luxury in their lives, they stocked up on books, they researched, they had a stash of money from a website she founded and she only freelanced to live in a NYC apartment; that made this seem like some Brooklyn (and eventually Portland) Fertility Fantasy of our perfect grass fed hipster family, but instead of this glow-y, mommy blog aura instead she doubles down on every unpleasantness. Oversharing the bad does not fix the gloat-y oversharing that this book is criticizing (I have my own issues with the hyper-competitive environment of mommy bloggers) it just makes the information shared a competition. The joy of natural childbirth juxtaposed to hours of natural labor, caving for the epidural, and then an emergency c-section, all the while stressing about your non-natural childbirth just sets up expectations that...god, where do I begin? All this and no worry about how the hospital bills get paid. Yeah. It's that kind of book.
All of the mom-shaming is heavily internalized by class. These are heavily personal problems. Her resources, her own community of affluent mothers, is what shapes her insecurities. This country is not good at taking care of mothers; healthcare, maternity leave, childcare, these are issues that you get thrust into when you're not ready, and she had all these things taken care of, or as simple as sneaking out of the house for an hour while her partner watched the newborn, so all of her complaints are on a personal level, and read more like the frantic Facebook posts of your high school friend who got knocked up.
Her partner is portrayed as a selfless partner, and to be clear keeping the family afloat while the mother struggles with postpartum depression is no small feat, but she sorts out this dichotomy of "Good Parent" (Him) and "Bad Parent" (Her) when it comes to their baby that enables a lot of victimhood of her behalf. He is incredibly condescending to her on several occasions, one being where she falls on her back with the baby in a carrier at her front, saving the baby from any damage and scaring herself half to death, and he judgmentally tells her to never wear those shoes again and shit like that rubbed me the wrong way. Half of her pregnancy and parenting is colored by, as mentioned by another review, he said, she said, he said; she cries.
I know I'm skewed a little younger than the target audience, but I just think this is a large part of the "Getting Real About Motherhood" perspective that I just didn't connect with because there were things I genuinely didn't want to know. I don't mean the horrors of childbirth, bring it on, we all exist because of it, but there were moments when the author and her partner were not at their best and it does not feel resolved. Only a brief mention that while they were in crisis and stressing over a baby, she had postpartum the whole time and this is only mentioned once at the end of the book, because I was wondering when this bundle of joy would lead to the end of their relationship. Postpartum should be talked about even when she didn't know she had it, this is a book you can do that, not slipped into the last ten pages to "add perspective" to the misery of the last two hundred.
And there are overshares that I frankly found fucked up. Upon discovering her unplanned pregnancy, her partner has triumphant, passionate "we just made a baby" unprotected sex with her, and then afterwards is rather flippant in his assurance she's just going to get an abortion. I could not like this guy after that, it left such a weird taste in my mouth that this guy thinks knocking her up was the hottest thing in the world despite the fact that to him she obviously wasn't going to keep it? I'm as pro-choice as you can get but him being turned on by what you're inevitably going to abort is so fucked up. I just could not get passed this scene, throughout the whole book, the unplanned pregnancy, leveraging a breakup if they don't keep "this baby" (she does this when he points out they can get pregnant later down the line, he does not feel ready for a child yet) just made me feel exhausted. There's something about the level of luxury in their lives, they stocked up on books, they researched, they had a stash of money from a website she founded and she only freelanced to live in a NYC apartment; that made this seem like some Brooklyn (and eventually Portland) Fertility Fantasy of our perfect grass fed hipster family, but instead of this glow-y, mommy blog aura instead she doubles down on every unpleasantness. Oversharing the bad does not fix the gloat-y oversharing that this book is criticizing (I have my own issues with the hyper-competitive environment of mommy bloggers) it just makes the information shared a competition. The joy of natural childbirth juxtaposed to hours of natural labor, caving for the epidural, and then an emergency c-section, all the while stressing about your non-natural childbirth just sets up expectations that...god, where do I begin? All this and no worry about how the hospital bills get paid. Yeah. It's that kind of book.
All of the mom-shaming is heavily internalized by class. These are heavily personal problems. Her resources, her own community of affluent mothers, is what shapes her insecurities. This country is not good at taking care of mothers; healthcare, maternity leave, childcare, these are issues that you get thrust into when you're not ready, and she had all these things taken care of, or as simple as sneaking out of the house for an hour while her partner watched the newborn, so all of her complaints are on a personal level, and read more like the frantic Facebook posts of your high school friend who got knocked up.
Her partner is portrayed as a selfless partner, and to be clear keeping the family afloat while the mother struggles with postpartum depression is no small feat, but she sorts out this dichotomy of "Good Parent" (Him) and "Bad Parent" (Her) when it comes to their baby that enables a lot of victimhood of her behalf. He is incredibly condescending to her on several occasions, one being where she falls on her back with the baby in a carrier at her front, saving the baby from any damage and scaring herself half to death, and he judgmentally tells her to never wear those shoes again and shit like that rubbed me the wrong way. Half of her pregnancy and parenting is colored by, as mentioned by another review, he said, she said, he said; she cries.
August 14, 2018
It should be said from the the start: this is not a happy story, but yet - it definitely is. When O'Connell finds herself accidentally pregnant, she's thrust from her group of (mostly single) friends into an unknown world. There's fear and anticipation of the future, anxiety over making the right choices. As she starts looking for answers, she finds that there aren't many straightforward resources - so she creates her own.
I've long been interested in the narratives that surround motherhood. Especially in the past few years, as I've walked with friends through their own decisions (or not) to have a child, their pregnancies and adjustment into caring for an infant, I've found layer after layer of... bullshit. Gender reveals, natural childbirth, breastfeeding - all immersed in pressure and expectations.
And there is a lot at stake. You are creating another human, and childhood is obviously a crucial time for development, and O'Connell recognizes that. But what I loved in this memoir is her total honesty about what a struggle it is to separate your own experience from everything that gets put on you not just when you post an announcement on Facebook, but the moment you're a woman with a pulse.
Read this for an unsentimental, honest, and ultimately hopeful journey into motherhood.
I've long been interested in the narratives that surround motherhood. Especially in the past few years, as I've walked with friends through their own decisions (or not) to have a child, their pregnancies and adjustment into caring for an infant, I've found layer after layer of... bullshit. Gender reveals, natural childbirth, breastfeeding - all immersed in pressure and expectations.
And there is a lot at stake. You are creating another human, and childhood is obviously a crucial time for development, and O'Connell recognizes that. But what I loved in this memoir is her total honesty about what a struggle it is to separate your own experience from everything that gets put on you not just when you post an announcement on Facebook, but the moment you're a woman with a pulse.
Read this for an unsentimental, honest, and ultimately hopeful journey into motherhood.
June 5, 2018
So many mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I read it in about a day, but on the other hand, it was kind of a love to hate exercise.
I nearly gave up near the beginning when the author, a 29 year old New Yorker, mentioned that she and her boyfriend were using the 'pull-out method' and she'd gotten pregnant because she'd told him that she'd just finished her period so wasn't fertile. I'd expect that from a 19 year old, but 29? A 29 year old city woman (and man)? I mean, I had a Catholic school education too, but I didn't stay at that level of knowledge for the next decade, you know? At that point I decided she was so stupid that I wasn't interested in anything she could possibly say (later, in the post-birth sex part of the book, I found out her boyfriend is just as stupid and self-centred in his own way).
But it sort of became compelling. The shallowness, the self-centredness, the stupidity, the whining. But also, the honesty. And every now and then there'd be a nugget of something real and important. Which in the end, was enough for me to keep going.
So, a quick read, which might mean something more to younger women like her (I'm talking early twenties, because I think that's about where her mental/emotional age was).
I nearly gave up near the beginning when the author, a 29 year old New Yorker, mentioned that she and her boyfriend were using the 'pull-out method' and she'd gotten pregnant because she'd told him that she'd just finished her period so wasn't fertile. I'd expect that from a 19 year old, but 29? A 29 year old city woman (and man)? I mean, I had a Catholic school education too, but I didn't stay at that level of knowledge for the next decade, you know? At that point I decided she was so stupid that I wasn't interested in anything she could possibly say (later, in the post-birth sex part of the book, I found out her boyfriend is just as stupid and self-centred in his own way).
But it sort of became compelling. The shallowness, the self-centredness, the stupidity, the whining. But also, the honesty. And every now and then there'd be a nugget of something real and important. Which in the end, was enough for me to keep going.
So, a quick read, which might mean something more to younger women like her (I'm talking early twenties, because I think that's about where her mental/emotional age was).
June 6, 2018
Around 2 years ago, I had a simple, uncomplicated natural birth following a simple, uncomplicated pregnancy. It took 10 months before I stopped getting flashbacks and shaking every time something reminded me of childbirth. After almost two years, I still have not physically recovered fully although the PT says this is as good as it gets and this reduced state of health and wellness counts as "healed". And I got off easy compared to many.
There is no other routine lifecycle event that we pressure people into undergoing that is anything like childbirth.
If you look around for the acknowledgement of what childbirth is really like for women in our society, it’s hidden under a cheerful, polished veneer of “Doesn’t matter.” Books like the Girlfriend’s Guide titter cheerfully that bikini season is permanently over and yes you will pee every time you sneeze for the rest of your life, but *it’s all worth it!* Nobody warns you of the other possible side-effects or long-term ramifications, even though the list is longer than any that you will hear at the end of a pharmaceuticals advertisement. Nobody can really prepare you for what it’s like, but neither does anyone really try.
“It’s all worth it.” One is not allowed to be grumpy or bitter about having a baby, because there are so many who would love the opportunity. It’s in poor taste, so much of a First World Problem that even the first world has no sympathy. And so, nobody says anything.
Until now. Meaghan O’Connell’s “And Now We Have Everything” is the scream of rage every woman should read before they move on to the frothy cheer of Hypnobabies, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, and the rest of the misleading canon of motherhood that we feed women to convince them that it’s all No Big Deal and if they think it is, the problem is with them.
It's a personal memoir, so I didn’t identify with everything, but the overall experience and sentiment rang true. My “PTSD” returned while I read. I shook. I cried. I wanted to shout "Yes!" and "Exactly!" and "You said it!" at various points where she perfectly captures the post-partum struggle of existing as a human being. I wanted to call Meaghan up and start a mommy group where we can all sit around complain about how shitty it all is, and mock the people who would have us believe there’s a comparison between human and feline childbirth, or that “never sleeping again” is a perfectly normal way to exist, or that living with chronic pain is desirable when it's in service of a baby.
Of course, if you're one of those people with no expectations of a life beyond motherhood, or who think that "it's all worth it" means that a child is perfect compensation for any loss incurred in its creation, then this is not the book for you. But it's okay: you've already got a million books that are for you. This one is for the rest of us.
There is no other routine lifecycle event that we pressure people into undergoing that is anything like childbirth.
If you look around for the acknowledgement of what childbirth is really like for women in our society, it’s hidden under a cheerful, polished veneer of “Doesn’t matter.” Books like the Girlfriend’s Guide titter cheerfully that bikini season is permanently over and yes you will pee every time you sneeze for the rest of your life, but *it’s all worth it!* Nobody warns you of the other possible side-effects or long-term ramifications, even though the list is longer than any that you will hear at the end of a pharmaceuticals advertisement. Nobody can really prepare you for what it’s like, but neither does anyone really try.
“It’s all worth it.” One is not allowed to be grumpy or bitter about having a baby, because there are so many who would love the opportunity. It’s in poor taste, so much of a First World Problem that even the first world has no sympathy. And so, nobody says anything.
Until now. Meaghan O’Connell’s “And Now We Have Everything” is the scream of rage every woman should read before they move on to the frothy cheer of Hypnobabies, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, and the rest of the misleading canon of motherhood that we feed women to convince them that it’s all No Big Deal and if they think it is, the problem is with them.
It's a personal memoir, so I didn’t identify with everything, but the overall experience and sentiment rang true. My “PTSD” returned while I read. I shook. I cried. I wanted to shout "Yes!" and "Exactly!" and "You said it!" at various points where she perfectly captures the post-partum struggle of existing as a human being. I wanted to call Meaghan up and start a mommy group where we can all sit around complain about how shitty it all is, and mock the people who would have us believe there’s a comparison between human and feline childbirth, or that “never sleeping again” is a perfectly normal way to exist, or that living with chronic pain is desirable when it's in service of a baby.
Of course, if you're one of those people with no expectations of a life beyond motherhood, or who think that "it's all worth it" means that a child is perfect compensation for any loss incurred in its creation, then this is not the book for you. But it's okay: you've already got a million books that are for you. This one is for the rest of us.
November 15, 2018
The real truth about motherhood. Motherhood is tough and I think most mothers are not ready for it when it happens. Meaghan O'Connell did reflect a lot of these motherhood far from perfect moments. Actually my main criticism is that I thought for half the book that her baby is going to die.
Motherhood is extremely hard. It is very hard to be in the middle and not being sure what you feel. It is hard to be right after, and get all the pain and body changes, and maybe not feel this crazy in love, but confused. It is hard to be back to real life, and listen to all of this pressure about feeding a baby, and immunizations. And are you a good mother or a bad mother? You are probably such a bad mother.
Motherhood in most books is perfect, easy and smooth. In most real life houses it is messy, tired and rough. It is good that someone says it out loud. The problem might be that O'Connell's book might look to some too much (especially with all the death trailers at the beginning).
3.5 stars, I'll take it up to 4 with heavy heart. With less death would be for sure over 4 stars. Let's say the truth about mothers and motherhood. We are all not perfect. We are all just human beings with the super power of being a mom.
Motherhood is extremely hard. It is very hard to be in the middle and not being sure what you feel. It is hard to be right after, and get all the pain and body changes, and maybe not feel this crazy in love, but confused. It is hard to be back to real life, and listen to all of this pressure about feeding a baby, and immunizations. And are you a good mother or a bad mother? You are probably such a bad mother.
Motherhood in most books is perfect, easy and smooth. In most real life houses it is messy, tired and rough. It is good that someone says it out loud. The problem might be that O'Connell's book might look to some too much (especially with all the death trailers at the beginning).
3.5 stars, I'll take it up to 4 with heavy heart. With less death would be for sure over 4 stars. Let's say the truth about mothers and motherhood. We are all not perfect. We are all just human beings with the super power of being a mom.
April 17, 2018
I passed out on the subway while reading this book. There were probably a lot of other factors involved, but I don't think that Meaghan O'Connell's description of an epidural helped.
January 24, 2019
I really enjoyed this #memoir #audiobook about millenial motherhood. I loved how she didn't shy away from complex, contradictory, and negative aspects of pregnancy, birth, and being a new mom. It's brutally honest and vulnerable but not without humour. She writes:"What if everyone worried less about giving women a bad impression of motherhood?"; this is certainly what she does. Only complaint: I wished she had dug a bit deeper into certain issues (namely, post-partum depression, her and her partner's decision to have the baby, and their decision to leave New York).
Her writing about PPD in particular is strange, as she only mentions it near the very end of the book, chronologically when she realized at the time that she had had it for like a year after the birth and was just emerging from it. It kind of retroactively coloured a lot of the previous chapters for me--like, was breastfeeding actually that awful, did she really need to start writing again so soon, was she really naturally more of a "slacker" parent than her partner--like is any of that true separate from her experiencing depression? Or was all that writing that was ostensibly about other topics actually just about depression? I really would have liked her to address that!
Her writing about PPD in particular is strange, as she only mentions it near the very end of the book, chronologically when she realized at the time that she had had it for like a year after the birth and was just emerging from it. It kind of retroactively coloured a lot of the previous chapters for me--like, was breastfeeding actually that awful, did she really need to start writing again so soon, was she really naturally more of a "slacker" parent than her partner--like is any of that true separate from her experiencing depression? Or was all that writing that was ostensibly about other topics actually just about depression? I really would have liked her to address that!
April 12, 2018
As someone who doesn't plan to have kids, I did not expect to be so engrossed by this or to identify with it so thoroughly. It just hit a pitch-perfect tone for me; there's no navel-gazey, hippy mom bullshit in sight, just a particular mix of insecurity and mild cynicism that characterizes life for a lot of late 20-to-early-30-something women as the pressure builds to figure out your life and what you want re: career, marriage, kids.
God, did I recognize some uncomfortable parts of my younger self in the specific brand of chickenshit that she portrays early on. It's this messy mix of the drive to seem Laid Back and without needs in a relationship, the suppression of actual needs, the resulting anger and resentment (shoved down, of course), and a desperate, paralyzing pressure to figure out the "right" thing to do in any given situation. She just fucking nailed it.
God, did I recognize some uncomfortable parts of my younger self in the specific brand of chickenshit that she portrays early on. It's this messy mix of the drive to seem Laid Back and without needs in a relationship, the suppression of actual needs, the resulting anger and resentment (shoved down, of course), and a desperate, paralyzing pressure to figure out the "right" thing to do in any given situation. She just fucking nailed it.
April 9, 2023
This read like a very long blog post. It's a quick read, which is probably for the best, because this was like sitting down for an afternoon to listen to a very privileged friend complain via monologue about her very boring insecurities.
First, when I read the description stating that "O'Connell got accidentally pregnant in her twenties," I got excited. After having a baby shortly after my 23rd birthday, I thought I might finally read a relatable book about treading the waters of motherhood as a "young mom." Nope. O'Connell was 29, a very common age to have a child, "accidentally" or not.
Second, her fiance cries numerous times throughout this book. So does she, but the number of times she describes him as tearful or choked up seems a bit excessive.
Third, You never find out the name of the baby. The baby is "the baby" throughout the entire book. For such a personal glimpse into motherhood, this felt odd and narcissistic in the way that she's willing to describe her C-section scar in gruesome detail but withhold meaningful things about the little boy who made her a mother.
Overall, this book points to a self-obsessed generation that is slow to mature emotionally. While her takes on breastfeeding and lack of sleep were well-depicted, I was mostly left feeling exasperated and bored.
*Note/Update: After rereading my review 2 years later, I feel like it's a bit harsh. I remember going through some post-partum depression during this time, just as the author admits in hindsight toward the end of the book (I don't think this is a spoiler).
My main criticism now is that I wish she had written more about her experiences with the self-knowledge hindsight often provides that perhaps post-partum depression informed a lot of how she felt about her experiences.
First, when I read the description stating that "O'Connell got accidentally pregnant in her twenties," I got excited. After having a baby shortly after my 23rd birthday, I thought I might finally read a relatable book about treading the waters of motherhood as a "young mom." Nope. O'Connell was 29, a very common age to have a child, "accidentally" or not.
Second, her fiance cries numerous times throughout this book. So does she, but the number of times she describes him as tearful or choked up seems a bit excessive.
Third, You never find out the name of the baby. The baby is "the baby" throughout the entire book. For such a personal glimpse into motherhood, this felt odd and narcissistic in the way that she's willing to describe her C-section scar in gruesome detail but withhold meaningful things about the little boy who made her a mother.
Overall, this book points to a self-obsessed generation that is slow to mature emotionally. While her takes on breastfeeding and lack of sleep were well-depicted, I was mostly left feeling exasperated and bored.
*Note/Update: After rereading my review 2 years later, I feel like it's a bit harsh. I remember going through some post-partum depression during this time, just as the author admits in hindsight toward the end of the book (I don't think this is a spoiler).
My main criticism now is that I wish she had written more about her experiences with the self-knowledge hindsight often provides that perhaps post-partum depression informed a lot of how she felt about her experiences.
August 1, 2019
“Knowing what I am capable of, what I need in order to be a good parent, a good person—it occurs to me that I had to have a baby to figure all of this out [...] How I wish it had come easier, sooner. I wish these two things had happened in the other order: me learning what I needed and then becoming someone’s mother.”
A profoundly honest book about becoming a mother. About the difficulty of choosing a boy’s name when there’s a man who has ruined every single one. About having the birth you envisioned robbed from you and internalizing it as your own failure. About the bewildering first couple weeks with a newborn. About the paradox of hating pumping but knowing that it buys you precious hours of freedom. About the constant intrusive thoughts that remind you of your baby’s mortality. About the things we tell ourselves we won’t do that we acquiesce to out of desperation. About the desire to cherish having a baby but the reality that it’s monotonous and tedious. About how hard it is to admit what we need to be good mothers, how impossible it is to allow ourselves the grace we deserve.
So many of O’Connnell’s personal experiences and reflections spoke to me, even the ones that didn’t perfectly align with my own. This is the kind of rawness and candor that I crave as a new mother.
A profoundly honest book about becoming a mother. About the difficulty of choosing a boy’s name when there’s a man who has ruined every single one. About having the birth you envisioned robbed from you and internalizing it as your own failure. About the bewildering first couple weeks with a newborn. About the paradox of hating pumping but knowing that it buys you precious hours of freedom. About the constant intrusive thoughts that remind you of your baby’s mortality. About the things we tell ourselves we won’t do that we acquiesce to out of desperation. About the desire to cherish having a baby but the reality that it’s monotonous and tedious. About how hard it is to admit what we need to be good mothers, how impossible it is to allow ourselves the grace we deserve.
So many of O’Connnell’s personal experiences and reflections spoke to me, even the ones that didn’t perfectly align with my own. This is the kind of rawness and candor that I crave as a new mother.
July 4, 2018
Plusieurs citations vraiment TRÈS mémorables. J’ai adoré certaines parties du livre, en particulier ce qui a trait à ses attentes déçues de son accouchement, le sentiment de l’avoir raté, d’avoir offert une « piètre performance » face à la douleur, etc. Probablement parce que ça a mis des mots précis et drôles sur des sentiments que je n’avais pas osé explorer encore.
Par contre, pour le reste, j’ai été relativement frustrée. Plusieurs pages autour de l’idée qu’elle est dérangée du fait que son chum soit un bon père et qu’il ait de l’initiative, etc. puisque ça la fait sentir comme une mauvaise mère. Elle aurait aimé être celle qui détient « le savoir », mais non hey c’est tu chiant han, le père de son enfant est super présent et fait lui aussi des recherches sur le web pour déterminer s’il faut donner du tylenol à son bébé. Fille, stp, juste ta yeule.
En fait, ce qui m’a dérangé est que c’est une vision, oui personnelle, mais souvent très bourgeoise et surtout très privilégiée de la maternité. Pas que c’est mauvais en soi. Mais disons que je suis devenue une pro du eye-rolling pendant ma lecture.
Par contre, pour le reste, j’ai été relativement frustrée. Plusieurs pages autour de l’idée qu’elle est dérangée du fait que son chum soit un bon père et qu’il ait de l’initiative, etc. puisque ça la fait sentir comme une mauvaise mère. Elle aurait aimé être celle qui détient « le savoir », mais non hey c’est tu chiant han, le père de son enfant est super présent et fait lui aussi des recherches sur le web pour déterminer s’il faut donner du tylenol à son bébé. Fille, stp, juste ta yeule.
En fait, ce qui m’a dérangé est que c’est une vision, oui personnelle, mais souvent très bourgeoise et surtout très privilégiée de la maternité. Pas que c’est mauvais en soi. Mais disons que je suis devenue une pro du eye-rolling pendant ma lecture.
July 21, 2018
Gah, I loved this book. O'Connell captures so well the fears and anxieties of would-be moms (and I assume new moms too), and the first part of the book feels like a season of Master of None. While this memoir did nothing to assuage my deep-seated fears about pregnancy, I appreciated her honest and straightforward thoughts about all the ups and downs of motherhood.
December 21, 2018
This was a quick read and I only got halfway through before I had to stop. The cover of the book makes it sound like she was barely 20 years old when she got pregnant. She was 29. Her whole demeanor her whole feel sorry for herself attitude and victim role made me not enjoy this book at all and I had to stop.
February 12, 2018
Compulsively readable, honest, & raw. Finished in one sitting and am glad to have read it.
August 20, 2019
Loved loved loved it.
December 30, 2019
In the first 50 pages the author sounds like a 20 something teenager. Amidst the coffee bars, dinner parties and yoga classes O’Connell has some vague ideas about marriage and having a child in the future. Then this future comes too soon.
She prepares for the birth by soaking up natural childbirth ideas, learning how to “embrace” the pain of delivery… reading about the joy (and alleged necessity) of breast-feeding, etc. Nothing in this prelude hints that she will be in labor (a very be-labored labor) for 40 hours. None of this prepared her for decisions about epidurals or a C-section she had been conditioned to shun. Not all the doctors were aware of what all their poking means to someone in total pain. The birth of her son sounds like PTSD in the making. The description of the actions of medical staff seemed to indicate that delivery problems like O’Connell’s are routine.
Even with Dustin, who sounds like an ideal partner/help-mate/father, the illusion of a peaceful start with the newborn is also shattered. She now has a 24 hour a day job. In her exhaustion, the baby needs to be fed every 90 minutes and cries when removed… there is no rest. She is honest: she loves her baby, but wants her life, her “self” back.
She can’t relate to happy young moms, who may have had easy births or may have just been ready to have their babies. Her body has not adjusted from the trauma, and the father, now her husband, wants sex and she is not ready.
The natural birth concept has literature, programs, web sites etc. to get the word out. Can leaving out the risks really be justified for the reason that pregnant women should not be “scared”? Fortunately for O’Connell, she didn’t buy into it whole thing and didn’t try it at home.
This is a fast and easy book to read. The descriptions of her life leading up to the birth, the birth and then young motherhood are honest. While the mothers love their children and may not articulate the negative part of the birth experience, I am sure the emotions described by O'Connell, while they range in intensity, are common.
Once you get through the pre-delivery attitude, there is a lot of food for thought.
She prepares for the birth by soaking up natural childbirth ideas, learning how to “embrace” the pain of delivery… reading about the joy (and alleged necessity) of breast-feeding, etc. Nothing in this prelude hints that she will be in labor (a very be-labored labor) for 40 hours. None of this prepared her for decisions about epidurals or a C-section she had been conditioned to shun. Not all the doctors were aware of what all their poking means to someone in total pain. The birth of her son sounds like PTSD in the making. The description of the actions of medical staff seemed to indicate that delivery problems like O’Connell’s are routine.
Even with Dustin, who sounds like an ideal partner/help-mate/father, the illusion of a peaceful start with the newborn is also shattered. She now has a 24 hour a day job. In her exhaustion, the baby needs to be fed every 90 minutes and cries when removed… there is no rest. She is honest: she loves her baby, but wants her life, her “self” back.
She can’t relate to happy young moms, who may have had easy births or may have just been ready to have their babies. Her body has not adjusted from the trauma, and the father, now her husband, wants sex and she is not ready.
The natural birth concept has literature, programs, web sites etc. to get the word out. Can leaving out the risks really be justified for the reason that pregnant women should not be “scared”? Fortunately for O’Connell, she didn’t buy into it whole thing and didn’t try it at home.
This is a fast and easy book to read. The descriptions of her life leading up to the birth, the birth and then young motherhood are honest. While the mothers love their children and may not articulate the negative part of the birth experience, I am sure the emotions described by O'Connell, while they range in intensity, are common.
Once you get through the pre-delivery attitude, there is a lot of food for thought.
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